WHAT’S GOING ON

WGO#161-December 2007

ALONG THE WAY

 What Am I?

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT  

If you really want to be in a struggle, make sure you do the right thing!

LIVING THE SPIRITUAL LIFE School talk #51

We are going to talk today about living the spiritual life. Whether we ever get there or not, we don’t know.  But we’ll start on it.

We’re going to start by first talking about what’s going on in the world.  Most of the people in the world seem to be operating on the idea that people know what’s right but they go on and do wrong anyway.  Therefore they need to be shot, imprisoned, or what have you.  Now, that is probably as far from the spiritual life as you can get.  If you want to read newspapers or listen to the news on television, there is nothing but chaos going on all over the world.

But being in touch with a number of people around the world and also paying a little attention, there are a lot of people doing something altogether different.  They are a living an entirely different kind of life.  But they never get written up in the newspaper. That’s not news—that’s somebody’s doing well; that somebody is happy; that somebody is peaceful.

There are people who have been very ill that are the next day feeling good.  There are people with strange ailments that some way or other wake up and they are healed from their disorder.  These are going on.  But have you ever noticed any news articles about them?  I haven’t.  But there is a wee bit more interest in living an entirely different kind of life.

The yuppies now are having a terrible state that I hear of that they are ‘burned out’.  Burn out is another name for boredom.  But nobody wants to use that because we don’t use simple old-fashioned terms that you’re ‘bored’ anymore, so we don’t use that.  Boredom is the thing that bothers most people.

Now what happened in this is that the people pursued the 4 dual basic urges—all the pleasure and comfort you can get; escape all the pain; lots of attention and not be ignored; and that you can have approval and no disapproval; that you can feel very worthwhile and have a wonderful self image and not feel of inferior.  Basically you can buy that if you have enough money.

Most of the yuppies have been making considerable amount of money.  So most of them have been able to buy a considerable amount of the four dual basic urges. But after you have bought it, then what?  That’s where the burn out comes.  What am I going to do now?  I’ve bought it and it didn’t mean so much, anyway

You can have pleasure today. It doesn’t stick around long.  So what’s so great about that?  You can have attention.  That’s easy. What good does it do after you’re got it?  Or you could get a lot of approval if you spend enough money on people. They’ll approve of you as long as the money holds out. But what does it amount to in a bit?  And you can feel important.  Any of us can convince ourselves that we’re very important.  However after you check on it for awhile you notice the world was getting along fine before you were born.  And if you depart, I bet the world would get along fine, anyway.  I’ve noticed it continues to get along alright, no matter who’s around or who’s not around.

So much for the man made world and the man-made values of the four dual basic urges.  People do get them.  And we’re very thankful they do.  Because until you get them, you’re apt to feel very strongly that if you just had the four dual basic urges, you’d be very happy. And everybody, of course, wants to be happy. If they’ve never had them, it is useless to talk to them about the spiritual life or anything else.  Now, I know people who have not succeeded in very much of anything maintain they’re interested in the spiritual life, but their interest is in order to use spiritual means to gain the four dual basic urges.  They feel if they had the right spirituality going on they would then get rich and if they got rich they could have the four dual basic urges with the greatest of ease.

The only real candidate for spiritual living is the person who has succeeded in attaining a certain degree of the four dual basic urges.  If they haven’t gotten them, that’s all their looking for and they say they’re interested in spiritual things only because they feel in some way that would get the four dual basic urges.  But it turns out quite different.

So we hope everybody here has gained a considerable degree of the four dual basic urges.  If so, you can probably hear what we will continue talking about.  If you haven’t received it yet, assume you had better use the magic word to get it, not spiritual teaching.

Now, there’s a magic word we used to sell for $600.00 as to which all things have been accomplished.  That word is w-o-r-k.  So if you haven’t gotten the four dual basic urges, and you’re still interested, don’t try spiritual teaching and understanding to get it, try work.  And it will eventually get you to where you can buy the four dual basic urges.

So, we’ll start off with the spiritual life and we’ll try to see what some of it is about.  Now there are certain attributes one comes up with.  The first one would be a loving attitude.  We’re not talking about sentimentality, we’re talking about caring for people no matter where they are, what they’re doing, what they’re like.  Here is an attitude that I like this individual or I understand that what they’re doing they feel is right, proper, and justifiable with what light they have.

It is not expecting that people could do different than what they are doing.  It is very easy to think that everybody knows to do things my way.  And if they don’t do it that way they’re in some way pretty bad and I should get ticked off at them. That’ll straighten them out.  All I got to do is get angry with somebody.

A loving attitude is an attitude that life is pretty wonderful and all forms of life are pretty nice.  Some of them don’t have much light so obviously they do things that are probably not pleasing to everybody.

So a loving attitude is the start of the spiritual life, living the spiritual life is having a loving attitude towards all people, including the ones with pleasant personalities, and the ones that are crude, and the ones that are handicapped, ones that are unkind, ones that are uncouth.  They are doing the best they can with what light they have.  And what light we have is all we’re got. (To be continued next month)

A STORY

What people say to me or think of me has nothing to do with me.

Years ago I was invited to Denver to be a speaker at a convention.  The woman in charge of guest speakers arranged for the rooms.  When I arrived at the airport, she met me at the baggage claim, took me to the hotel and carried my bag to the room.  As she opened the door, she explained that another speaker would be sharing the room with me.  She knew I wouldn’t want to be alone.  Wrong.  I told her this arrangement would be fine and I assured I would enjoy a roommate.  But I suggested that next time she check with the speaker and let him/her make that decision.

Her actions were based on her conditioning.  SHE wouldn’t want to be in a strange city by herself.  She superimposed her conditioning on me.

Do I do the same thing to others?  Of course I do.  Last week I was talking to a friend.  She had planned to have company for a few days.  Her guests had called and cancelled their visit.  In my sleepy (not wanting to be disturbed) state, I said, “How wonderful.”  She looked at me strangely.  “Wonderful? I was looking forward to seeing them.”  At that moment, having company cancel sounded good.  My response was based on my feelings, not hers.

With the physical limitations I have, I learned long ago that other people’s reactions to me had nothing to do with me.  Their conditioning determined their reactions.  When I finally accepted this, I was free of feeling intimidated, put down or have my feelings hurt.

I have nothing to defend.  If I listen carefully to what others say, as well as myself, I will make discoveries about their conditioning and reveal dark areas within me.  We are all acting out our conditioning.  I will not react or defend what they are saying because it has nothing to do with me.

On the other side of the coin, I will not take compliments or the good opinions of others seriously either.  Those suggestions are also filtered through their conditioned ideas.

We really are 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time.

I will listen to not only what I say, but listen to what others are saying to me. It gives me very interesting information regarding all of us.

DR.BOB ON SOME OF THE LORD’S PRAYER

Lead us not into temptation.

What would be the greatest temptation that there could be?  To get us so comfortable that we’d go to sleep soundly.  So if we got what we generally would pray for, we would go to sleep.  If we received what our mind is thinking of when we say the prayer, we would be led into the temptation of sleep.  DON’T EVER DISTURB ME. And the greatest temptation that we have is to go to sleep.  So would you, then, at the same time of saying the prayer, be so thankful for all these little disturbances that come along?  Some of these challenges of every day keep you “disturbed”.  But please be thankful, so you don’t go to sleep, huh?  More and more be thankful, because if you don’t, you’ll go to sleep.

OPEN   Dr. Bob Gibson

To be open is to be free and to be free is to be open.  Nothing is open while there is struggle, conflict, resistance.  These close the door to conscious union with Spirit.  To be struggling with gaining and escaping to avoid being disturbed is to be closed.  To be free to be experiencing is to be open—open to the inflow of Spirit.  To be filled with the Spirit.  To be one with.

Struggle, conflict, resistance are the closers.  To be closed is to be shut off; the struggle to be a better person; the resistance to being what one is.  The conflict between what is and the ideal of what ought to be is the common lot of mankind and thus the feeling of being separate from God, Spirit.  This all stems from the natural man assuming that he knows what the spiritual union is like, what being at one with God is, and what the conditions are, all of which is assumed either by self or his or her interpretation of another’s words through the screen of the rational (conditioned) mind.  This is the source of his resistance to what is, his struggle to become, his internal conflict.

Freedom is when he or she discovers that there is freedom to experience whatever arises in one’s way today.  This is being open.  When one is truly open, union with God occurs.  The Free One is conscious of being at one with Spirit.

“The Father and I ARE one.”